Exploring how a parent’s education can affect the mental health of their offspring

News

New research sheds light on cycle of low socioeconomic
status and depression

Could depression in adulthood be tied to a parent's level of
education? A new study led by Amélie Quesnel-Vallée, a medical
sociologist from McGill University, suggests this is the case.

Drawing from 29 years of data from the National Longitudinal
Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79), Quesnel-Vallée and co-author Miles
Taylor, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at
Florida State University, looked at pathways
between a parent's education level and their children's education
level, household income and depressive symptoms.

The team found that higher levels of parental education meant
fewer mental health issues for their adult children. "However, we
also found much of that association may be due to the fact that
parents with more education tend to have children with more
education and better paying jobs themselves," explained
Quesnel-Vallée. "What this means is that the whole process of
climbing up the social ladder that is rooted in a parent's
education is a crucial pathway for the mental health of adult
children."

These findings suggest that policies aimed at increasing
educational opportunities for all, regardless of social background,
may help break the intergenerational cycle of low socioeconomic
status and poor mental health. "Children don't get to choose where
they come from. I think we have a responsibility to address health
inequalities borne out of the conditions of early childhood," said
Quesnel-Vallée.

The paper "Socioeconomic Pathways to Depressive Symptoms in
Adulthood: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth
1979" was recently published in the Journal Social Science
& Medicine.